Sorry about updating the blog this late.

We left off at the end of Sydney. The next day we arrived in ByronBay after a 12 hour couch journey, luckily the coach was much more spacious than all the others so we could get to sleep easy enough.
The coach took us to ByronBay where we booked a hostel in a place called The Arts Factory. There were hammocks over the whole place, lizards, possums in the morning (they woke us up at 5am by knocking on our roof) the place had tipi's you could stay in too. Unfortunately we were just in a simple lodge.
The first day we just settled down, went in the pool, relaxed in the hammocks and booked a tour to Nimbin the next day. For those of you who don't know, Nimbin is a small village populated by aging hippies and their children; it's the drugs capital of Australia. There were lots of crazy names for shops like 'Happy High Herbs', 'Gourmet Genie' and 'Bringabong' not to mention the Mardi Grass Festival.
The trip we got was with this guy called Jim who played us lots of drug influenced music along the way and took us to visit a guy called Paul who made his own jungle and lives in it. We visited his house out in his little jungle. Along the way we saw a lot of his 'art' which was mainly pieces of rubbish and old television sets in a pile. Oh and action figures.
He started preaching to us about atoms and cosmic links while we sat around eating Macadamia nuts.
When we were in Nimbin we went around the museum, it was full of posters about legalizing cannabis and the mardi grass festivals.

Gaining another hour as we changed time zones crossing the state border into Queensland, we moved onto Surfers paradise. No clues as to what that place is famous for. We were there for 3 days. The Hostel was lovely; everyone was extremely friendly and helpful. The whole hostel had a very homely feel to it.

Our first full day there saw us take a trip to not one, but TWO theme parks! We managed to get a fantastic deal (only $59 for both parks) made easier by the fact the parks were right next to each other. The first one we went in was a water park, called Whitewater World, perfect for Australian weather. We spent the first part of the day in here and, like everybody; we acted like we were kids again.

The other theme park we went to was Dream World, and although it was much more of a proper theme park, the first two rides we went on were still water based! We did a few other rides including what was probably the scariest ride in the park accidentally; it was a 120m tall tower which a roller coaster went up at 160kph. Seeing as the entrance was at a whole different end to the park we didn't realise we were going up the huge tower. When we actually got on the ride we spent the whole thing laughing at how much of a silly mistake we'd made, this probably made the whole thing a lot less scary than it was supposed to be, still, it was a fantastic ride. Other rides we went on were the log flume, the rapids ride and a quasar laser style room with an Alien vs. Predator theme. Basically we went through a room shooting random people with lasers. Our team won in the end! Go Team Blue! We also went to the wildlife area of the park and pet some kangaroos, saw a koala bear, a wombat, tigers and much more.

We finished the day with a barbecue back at the hostel to celebrate a Dutch girl's birthday who we'd met on the way back from the theme parks. It was actually the first time we spoke to an Aussie about the ashes. A conversation I actually got slightly involved in, enough to get me a free glass of punch.

The next day we spent at the beach where the waves were huge. There was a cyclone up north about 2 days before we arrived in Surfers Paradise so the waves were huge. I went in the water and let them push me across the water, if only I had a body board!

We then spent one night in the centre of Brisbane before moving on to stay with Chris's Australian relatives. His aunt and uncle, who we would be staying with for the duration, lived just outside of the main city in a lovely house at the top of a hill. They had a great view of the surrounding area and even had a pool. They really have been absolutely great to us, providing us with accommodation and meals and just putting up with us! We spent the first few days visiting and meeting his cousins and second cousins, who are all really nice. It was great for Chris as a lot of them he had never met before.

On Good Friday, we went along to Australia Zoo for the day, famously known as 'Steve Irwin Zoo'. Crikey! This was one of the places we said we'd go before we came to Australia and it didn't disappoint! Walking around at first you realise that there are a pair of crocodile or alligator eyes following you wherever you go! There were loads of them, all with names and a little story about when Steve had caught them. We headed off to the crocoseum, and got there in time for the build up to the croc show. As it was Easter, we were lucky enough to have Steve Irwin's wife and kids hosting the show. It was a really awesome. I assure you, watching someone get chased around an arena by a hungry croc is great entertainment! We also managed to catch a tiger show as well over in TigerTemple. It's amazing how you can train a tiger as a pet, as if it was just a normal dog. We got to see the tigers jumping up trees and chase toys around their area and jump after them into a pool. Tigers are one of only two types cats who actually like water, the other being jaguars. We saw a wide variety of other animals as well, and got to pet koalas and kangaroos.

We've ventured into Brisbane a few times, looking round some museums and some impressive art galleries. We had a cruise down the BrisbaneRiver in a catamaran as well, which allowed us to see quite a bit of the city. I was a bit ill for a few days so we've just been relaxing at the house a bit as well, just taking in everything we have done so far.